Bacorium Legacy (71 page)

The man atop the dragon pointed a spear at the Saetician army before him.

“Annihilate them all.”

The dragon kicked off the ground, its huge wings throwing up a cloud of dust with each bat. The Acarians made no battle cry as they charged. The monsters were unleashed, and ran towards the Saeticians with a simple-minded fervour. The behemoths shook the ground with each step of their heavy feet.

“Fight them!” Luca heard Halt shouting to his men. “Archers! Open fire!”

The archers did so, though without time to prepare, their attacks were uncoordinated and ineffective. A few Acarians were hit, and struck down, but the assault continued all but unhindered. Compared to the masterful, synchronised archery Luca had seen at Allma Temple - which had been enough to bring down two behemoths the moment they'd broken through the gate - the attacks of the Saetician archers were like the clumsy efforts of a child.

The two forces met, and chaos broke out. The sounds of battle filled the air, and the sounds of battle cries. Within moments, however, the sounds of death echoed over them.

Tranom quickly assessed the situation, and began to bark orders to his students.

Luca drew
Siora
and said to Brand and Wiosna, “I'll handle the guy on the dragon.”
 

They stared at him like he was insane. “What are you saying?” Brand demanded.

“Just help Tranom!” Luca shouted to them, already starting off in the direction of the dragon, which flew a good fifty metres above the battlefield. It hovered in place, maintaining its altitude with strong, steady beats of its thick wings.

But even though Luca was determined to beat the man on the dragon, he had no idea how he was going to get him to come down. He had no magick powerful enough to knock the dragon out of the sky, and no weapon would harm it, as the many arrows bouncing harmlessly off its scales showed.

He thought back to the battle of Allma Temple, when Dori had emerged from underground, riding on the back of Austille. They had lost that day, and both Dori and Austille had been killed. That had been with a dragon on their side, and with powerful walls to keep the enemy at bay. Here, they were ambushed, surrounded, and a dragon was fighting for the enemy. And though the Sonoians were attacking the Acarians from outside the circle, it did little to stay the slaughter of the Saeticians. For the sake of the situation at hand, Luca forced himself to ignore the sounds of Saetician soldiers dying left and right.

He thrust his sword and struck an Acarian between the gaps in his armour before he could finish killing a Saetician. The Acarian gave no cry, though red blood did spill out from the wound, covering Luca's sword and gloves. The Acarian then died, his armour falling apart in many pieces as his body vanished.

“Are you okay...” Luca began to ask the wounded Saetician soldier, but his voice caught as he saw the nature of the wounds. An arm was missing, and a leg, both on the right side of his body. His helm had fallen off, and his face and hair were soaked in blood. Luca could not be sure, but it looked like he was missing an eye. He was a boy, at least a few years younger than Luca himself.

The sheer brutality of it cut through Luca's usual stoic exterior like a knife through butter. Suddenly, he felt naked in that battlefield. He wore only light armour, as he preferred speed over protection, and the dying boy before him wore armour much heavier than Luca's. All it would take was a single determined swing of an axe, or a thrust spear, and he could be in the same miserable condition.

No. No, worse. For even though the boy before him was dying a slow, painful death, at least he could feel the eventual reprieve of death. Luca could not have that. He could be cut a hundred times, and bear the most horrible of agonies, but he would cling to life so long as Emila still breathed. The thing that had before been his armour was suddenly terrifying to him.

There was nothing he could do for this boy. Luca knew that if he looked around, he would see similar sights everywhere. In the time it would take him to get the kid to the healers, dozens of others would suffer the same injuries. The healers were probably struggling as it was. And even if they did get to him in time to save his life, the chances that they could reattach his limbs after so long was very low.

He didn't want to look, but he did anyway. He turned his gaze away from the boy, and at the battlefield.

It was chaos. There was no strategy, no formations, no orders. The Saeticians were on their own, doing all they could to defend against an endless wave of monsters and faceless men in black and red armour. The Acarians had split off into two groups, one of which was driving the Sonoians back, away from the large circle. The rest of them were driving the Saeticians inward, towards the centre, in a ring that grew tighter and tighter.

In the distance, Luca could see Halt surrounded by his men, who were struggling to keep their king safe. Halt looked terrified. He had a sword out, which was stained with green blood.

On the other side of the fight, Zaow had his sword out, and was beside his men, fighting off Acarians with a determined strength that one would not expect from a man his age. Luca did not see Selphie beside him, and his heart almost stopped as he realised what that likely meant. The Sonoians were doing well, but they could not break the tight wall the Acarians had built between them and the Saeticians.

The Acarian man on the dragon watched over it all, his eyes glowing with savage cruelty.

Luca's reverie was broken by the sight of an Acarian with an axe charging in his direction. He suddenly remembered something, a moment he had forgotten before then. He was dying, and an Acarian was charging at him with an axe. Just like this. But this was months ago, and they were beside a river, near an abandoned town. Luca could not think, because he was dying, and his body was burning, but some part of him remembered that he should not have been at that town. He should have been leagues and leagues north, in the frozen pit of death that his father had died in. So how had be come to be in a completely different part of the world in such a short time?

But then he was back at the situation at hand. He switched his sword to reverse-grip,
and used his father's combat style,
Jiuv'ol'xolic
, to flow right past the Acarian. A moment later, a head went flying in the air, and the Acarian with the axe was dead.
 

Two more Acarians charged at him, these two with spears. Luca could feel his mind emptying, being replaced by a sort of haziness. There was no more thought to be had. He was fighting, and there was nothing but him and the enemy.

He danced right past the two Acarians, cutting them up like ribbons. His sword felt hot in his hand. He saw more Acarians, with goblins, who were engaged with a small group of Saeticians. In what felt like an instant, he was there, and driving his sword into the Acarians, right through their armour. The goblins shrieked as he split them in half. The Saeticians he had saved stared at him in awe.

“H-how...?!”

He didn't answer. He was a machine, and there was nothing to him but the task at hand. He spotted more Acarians, hefting bloody weapons to strike down Saeticians. He was then beside them, his sword flowing through them. It was too easy. He could do this all day.

He continued this cycle, moving from here to there, killing Acarians and their monsters. He couldn't know how long this went on, but when a pair of hands seized him by his shoulders and shouted his name, he suddenly returned to his senses and saw he was covered in blood from head to toe.

“Luca!” Brand shouted again.

“Wh-what...”

“Do you have any idea what you've been doing...?!” Brand demanded, halfway between fear and amazement.

“I was...”

He trailed off. Something else was coming back to him.

This spell is different from most others. It is hard to explain, but if I tell you any more about the weave before you actually perform it, mental blocks could rise up and prevent you from ever mastering it at all. It is like swimming… the only way to figure it out is to just jump in.

His father's voice.

It was that infuriating spell he could never figure out. The one he had to master before he could even know what it did. The one Lodin could never figure out.

And then he knew what had been nagging at him. The giant ornate circle had triggered something in his mind. He knew it, because he had seen it before. It was the same as the circle his father had given him to study - the circle he was supposed to visualise as he practised that spell.

The spell that he now knew Zinoro could also use - for he had used it so many times already. Zinoro has used it to get his army to Arimos, and to Allma Temple, and he had just now used it to send his acolyte and his army before them and ambush them.

“I know what I'm doing now,” he said to Brand. Wiosna stood beside him as well, ragged and short of breath. They were both covered in blood as well. Luca didn't know how long the battle had been going on, but the Saeticians were still alive, and the Sonoians were still fighting their way to them.

“Luca, how are you doing that?” Wiosna asked in awe.

“It's too much to explain now,” he replied. He cast his gaze up to the dragon, still hovering in the air. “But now that I've got my wits back, I'm going to do what I said I was going to do.”

Brand and Wiosna both began to say something, but he didn't listen. He turned away from them, and started walking towards the edge of the battlefield, ignoring the chaos and bloodshed around him, making his way towards the acolyte. He could see the man clearly, even as far away as he was. Luca focused his gaze on the back of the dragon's neck, at the spot right in front of the acolyte.

He gathered his mana.

There was a flash of light, and he was gone. Within the span of a single second, he vanished from the ground of the battlefield, and appeared on the back of the dragon, right in front of the man.

The wind was raging around them. The acolyte smirked, unsurprised at Luca's sudden appearance.

“So you've decided to join me,” he said. “Your trick was quite interesting to watch. My king can do something similar, but it's a bit different from what you do. He can only use the circles.”

“You're one of his acolytes?” Luca demanded.

The man nodded slowly. “I'm his second in command, actually. My name is Serpos. And this is my dragon you're on.”

Luca felt a rush of mana, and suddenly the dragon lurched, throwing itself back with a powerful bat of its wings. Luca immediately lost his balance, and fell.

He panicked for a moment, but he knew what he needed to do. He gathered his mana and warped again, but this time he picked a spot on the ground, some distance away from the battle. The momentum of his fall was gone immediately, and he reappeared on the ground without harm.

He had barely five seconds to gather his bearings, before he heard the sound of laughter bellowing through the air. A massive shadow blocked out the sun, and Luca saw the giant dragon swooping down in front of him. The beast landed with a heavy thud, and its neck stretched out so the head was facing him. Its jaws opened.

Luca warped away at the last second before a stream of fire erupted from the dragon's mouth, incinerating the spot where he had been standing. He reappeared a safe distance away, but Serpos immediately spotted him.

“You're fast, boy!” the Acarian shouted. He reached behind him, pulling two man-length spears out of sheathes attached to the dragon's saddle. He then slid off the side of the dragon, and landed on the ground beside it. A moment later, the dragon kicked off the ground, leaving Serpos behind.

Luca accepted the challenge, teleporting to the man's side. He swung his sword, but Serpos jumped back, doing a back flip in midair and landing a couple metres away.

“But I'm faster,” Serpos said with a smirk.

Luca was about to close the distance and attack him again, when Serpos put one of his spears in the ground and raised a hand to stop him.

“Wait, wait,” he said. “Before we fight, I think you should know what's at stake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look up.” Serpos pointed at the sky, where his dragon was circling the battlefield. “I have magick that lets me control that beast. I have complete power over it, and it will do anything I order it to without question. You saw this when it watched the battle from afar, not participating until I ordered it to. Now, I will give you an option. Surrender to me, son of Lodin, and I will end this battle now.”

Luca spat at the ground. “Your word means nothing.”

“We Acarians do have honour,” said Serpos. “And on that honour, I will tell you that if you don't surrender, I will order my dragon to reign fire upon your comrades. They're struggling against three behemoths and a few thousand of our men. Imagine how long they'll last if I send my dragon in there as well.”

For half a second, Luca did consider it. But he thought of all the people who had died. He could still see the image of the boy from before like it was burned in the back of his eyelids.

“Too many people have died already,” Luca said. “We're here to stop you. There will be no negotiation.”

Serpos smirked again. “I thought you would say that.” His left hand discreetly moved to his hip, where a small pouch was tied to his belt. There was a rush of mana, and then the sound of the dragon roaring filled the air.

Something about the pouch he held - he was clearly trying to hide that movement. Luca decided to pretend he hadn't seen it.

In the distance, Luca could see the dragon swooping down, a burst of fire striking the Saeticians. Luca averted his eyes. He couldn't force himself to watch it.

“To tell the truth, you made the right choice,” Serpos said with a sadistic smile. “I would not have stopped the attack one way or the other. I lied.”

Luca charged at Serpos, swinging his sword in the reverse-grip. Serpos pulled his extra spear from the ground, and parried Luca's strike.

“Do you see a braid over my ear?!” Serpos demanded. “I'm no Acarian! I don't have an honourable bone in my body!”